


Complementary Colors

by therapychicken



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Anxiety about aging, British Royal Family references, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, I Love Lucy crossover fic, Insecurity, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Post-Canon, Role Switching, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but not from who you think, kind of, maybe the tiniest bit of angst? but not even, they are just so cute I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 07:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25467067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therapychicken/pseuds/therapychicken
Summary: David sees Patrick looking into the mirror anxiously. This is not characteristic behavior.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 20
Kudos: 155





	Complementary Colors

**Author's Note:**

> So it looks like I'm allergic to working on my WIPs, but that somehow these things just spill out of me? Ah well. 
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments!

David wakes up one morning to find Patrick staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, already dressed for work, his extremely minimal eyebrows scrunched. This is not normal behavior for the kind of husband who uses Cetaphil facial cleanser and smells his shirts before he puts them on. Intriguing.

David pads over to Patrick and drapes his arms over Patrick's shoulders, which are so hunched that David finds himself practically stooped over and falling with his face in Patrick's neck, which is not altogether a bad place to be. He breathes in the smell of Patrick's soap on Patrick's skin and looks up to meet Patrick's eyes in the mirror. They look...alarmed? Abashed? He deposits a kiss on Patrick's Adam's apple and hums, "what are you looking at, honey?"

Patrick grins quickly and says, "well now I'm looking at you, gorgeous," and turns his head to kiss David, and while that's very pleasant David has bigger fish to fry. After a slightly-more-than-a-peck, David pulls back (to Patrick's dismay- his lips are following David's as he retreats) and squares himself up in front of Patrick, hands on his shoulders, looking into those warm brown eyes. 

He smiles and Patrick smiles back and just as he's getting comfortable- "so what were you looking at in the mirror, babe?"

Patrick's smile freezes for a moment before going back online, completely unconvincingly. "Um, nothing. Just normal mirror usage. Completely." 

"Uh huh. Normal mirror usage. Understood. I just didn't realize that normal mirror usage involved glaring at it like it had killed your father and should prepare to die. But sure, fine, normal mirror usage." 

"Yep, that's what it is, exactly." Patrick turns to leave the bathroom and David pivots right alongside him, hands still cemented firmly on Patrick's shoulders. 

Patrick rolls his eyes, but David suddenly can't let this go and alarm bells are going off. "You were _looking_ at something, or for something. What were you looking at? Oh my god, you don't think you have- like- a lesion, or something, right? Just because you lived like a sad straight person for so many years and probably didn't use sunscreen doesn't mean you deserve to _die on me_ from _skin cancer_ or something. You're too young and even after five years I still haven't figured out the store filing system and I can't lose you." By now David's hands are rubbing and groping at Patrick's upper arms hard enough to cut off his blood circulation. 

"David, I do _not_ have a lesion, and I do _not_ have skin canc- just listen to me, okay?" Patrick sounds like he's juggling frustration with tenderness, which is a tone that David gets a lot from him, and he gingerly peels David's hands off of his shoulders, one at a time. He takes a deep breath and motions with his hands for David to do the same, in and then out. "I do not have a lesion, that's not what I was looking at, it's nothing, okay? And also, do you really think that any child raised by the very responsible Marcy Brewer, with skin this pale, did not have proper sunscreen wearing completely drilled into them? I burned fire truck red if I didn't have my SPF 70 on. You're stuck with me for a while, David." 

He smiles wearily and holds out his arms and David falls into them, happily but feeling like he is being distracted from something. He lets his back be stroked for a few seconds, his head nestled back in that crevice between Patrick's neck and shoulder that he likes so much, before he remembers. "You still haven't told me what's wrong. Don't think you can get away without doing it just because I'm all apologetic for that little meltdown. I can wait."

David disengages himself from Patrick's hug and trots off to get dressed, not looking back to see what expression is on Patrick's face. He knows this discussion isn't going to end in- in tears and an oncologist appointment, apparently, which means that the discovery process is likely to be very fun. He can afford to wait for that. 

Patrick is in the middle of a transaction with a customer when David slinks up behind him and puts his arms around his shoulders and says in a low voice, "you never told me what you were looking at earlier."

It's the perfect strategy, really- Patrick is working with a customer so he has to be nice and can't leave, but David can still get started on the information extraction process. Patrick groans. "Can we talk about this later? I'm so sorry, Mrs Peterson, my husband and I will have whatever conversation this is _after_ we have finished up."

Mrs Peterson laughs- she's a regular and knows them pretty well at this point. "Well," she says teasingly to Patrick, "if I had a husband half as handsome as yours I would be a lot less professional than you are right now, I have to say." She gives David a wink and he gives her a grin back and an exaggerated "I KNOW!" shoulder shrug. 

Patrick, on the other hand, has gone slightly flushed, but not quite in the cute way that David has been expecting, and laughs lightly. "Very true, but you have to keep things running around here. Here's your bag, Mrs Peterson, you have a good day now."

Mrs Peterson takes her bag from across the counter and with a cheerful wave says "bye boys!" as she makes her way out of the store. David watches her leave, the bell jingling behind her, and immediately turns to Patrick, who looks like the day of his execution has arrived. 

"I wasn't looking at anything, David, please stop." 

"You were! You absolutely were!" David is grinning at Patrick's discomfort because he knows it can't be that big a deal, but then again maybe it is, to him, so he slows it all down. "Honey, it really doesn't matter, I just want to know. I bet it's nothing, but you're just so cute and flustered that-"

"I'm going bald, okay!" Patrick says it like it's being forced out of him and his eyes widen when he realizes what he's said.

David can feel his own eyes widening as well, and his brain slows down. "You're what?" He likes to pride himself in a pretty thorough knowledge of Patrick's face and head and, well, body in general, and he would have noticed this. He wouldn't have said anything, but he would have noticed. He takes another peek and nope, same average-thirty-something hairline as ever. "No you aren't." 

"I am, you can see it right there." 

"I'm sorry, I must have left my magnifying glass in my other satchel. You look _fine,_ honey."

"I don't! I'm losing my hair!" 

"You're not losing your hair." David is laughing. He knows he shouldn't be, but he is, because he's never felt more like he's on the brink of living in a sitcom episode.

Patrick whines, "yes, I am! Look!" as he points to some random point on his forehead as though it proved everything. "My hairline is receding. It is right there in front of your face and if you can tell the difference between your three identical pairs of ripped black skinny jeans but somehow can't see this, I don't know what to tell you." 

"Oh my god, honey," and it's giggles now, David is giggling, and he can see Patrick steaming up but he just can't help it, "don't worry, I'll invite a party of Bob and Bob's bald friends so that you can see what baldness really looks like. I'll- I'll make a salad dressing on your head and put a stocking over it and give you a scalp massage. Will that help you in this journey of discovery, do you think?"

" _This is not funny!"_ Patrick roars and David only collapses into giggles even further, folding in on himself as he tries to hold himself together. By the time he's straightened himself back up, gasping slightly, Patrick still looks miffed but has a smile building at the corner of his lips. 

"Fine, fine, it's not funny," David says conciliatorily.

Patrick grins ruefully. "Thank you, David, for not making light of my pain." They're silent for a minute, and Patrick murmurs, "I never pinned you as an I Love Lucy fan."

"Excuse me, Lucille Ball was a treasure and a once in a lifetime physical comedienne," David retorts. "And you don't travel to foreign countries with, like, two English language stations without watching a lot of TV Land reruns." 

They're silent for a minute, David waiting for his breathing to get back to normal, and starting to feel kind of crappy about laughing just now. "You don't believe me when I say I don't see it?"

"I mean..." Patrick sighs. "It's not _super_ noticeable, fine. But the writing is on the wall, it's definitely starting, and then..." 

"Your dad has a pretty good head of hair, though. Why are you suddenly so fatalist about this?" David isn't sure at this point whether trying to convince Patrick logically is even the right tack, but it can't hurt.

Patrick groans. "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading that a man's balding patterns are maternally inherited. And my mom's brothers-"

" _No._ "

"Actual cue balls, yes." At this point it kind of feels like Patrick is trying to talk himself into this, which is weird, isn't it? 

David frowns, because hang on, this isn't fair. "Wait a minute, when I started getting gray hairs, you told me you thought they were hot."

"They were hot!"

"Okay, so now when you're- thinking that you're going bald, I can't just say you're hot and that's the end of that?"

"Going bald isn't hot, though," Patrick says frustratedly. "You going gray? You're stunning, so you just look like your hair has bought into your black-and-white color scheme or something. You look amazing. Me though-"

"But you're beautiful."

"No, I'm sorry, I know that we mutually buy into this fiction where we're both equally attractive to each other, but let's face it, you are way out of my league, you are stunningly beautiful, once you've gone gray you will be a silver fox- you are going to look like, Idunno, George Clooney or Tan France or something-" David almost wants to interrupt to point out that Tan France is younger than him and dyes his hair, but hearing Patrick out so he can adequately refute him is more important, and also there are worse things than being told you look like Tan France- "and I just can't keep up with that on a good day, okay, and losing one of the few things that I thought I could rely on so that people don't see a gorgeous guy who is for some reason married to a, to a bridge troll is kind of upsetting to me." 

"So you're saying that once you get wrinkles due to decades of inadequate skincare that you still refuse to remedy, this _thing_ that we're doing now is going to happen again."

He couldn't resist that one, but Patrick looks up at him balefully. "You're really not helping, David," and yeah, actually, that's probably true. 

David sighs, because he genuinely doesn't know what to say now. They've been married for three years; surely David should have known before now that Patrick is feeling something like this? That he's feeling insecure about how he looks? And he- he surely can't think that David would _leave_ him just for balding? He's younger than David, David will probably be a shriveled old crone years before Patrick and his preternaturally youthful face age beautifully like a Botoxed movie actor, because let's be real, despite Patrick refusing to look after his skin it is just miraculously good anyway somehow. 

Patrick- Patrick doesn't really think this, does he? Does David make him think that he _should_ think like this?

Desperately, David says, "you know that if it weren't for your stupid fucking rule about messing around in the store I'd be showing you right now and very thoroughly how gorgeous and non-bridge-troll-like you are, right?" 

Patrick's eyes widen and his mouth softens and his skin blushes pink, and suddenly his face is the one that haunts some of David's most pleasant dreams, the ones which are only improved by the fact that David then wakes up to that same smiling face in real life. "I know," Patrick whispers, and there's a bit of heat in his eyes, and David puts on that feral-type smile, partly because it's what he's actually feeling and partly because he thinks it will convey to Patrick what he wants it to convey. "I know. This isn't about you, David, I'm sorry. It's not. This is stupid."

"It's not stupid. How you feel isn't stupid. So what are you feeling?" David has to put all of his energy into not biting his lip or radiating the anxiety that is coursing through his chest right now, and instead tries to seem welcoming and sexy and zen, which is probably an exercise in futility but damn, does he love Patrick. 

Patrick closes his eyes and David can't not go over and hug him and so it's into David's chest that Patrick says, "it's really nothing, I swear, it's just- part of me getting older, I guess? It's just never really happened before, that suddenly I'm starting to feel like I'm aging, and I know that's normal, it really is. I guess it's just bringing out some other things that I hadn't been really thinking about much? Things that I know don't matter because I know how you think about me and how I look, and that's what actually matters, who gives a shit what other people think, but it turns out that apparently deep down I do give at least a little bit of a shit."

David just keeps stroking down the length of Patrick's back and thanks whatever gods or goddesses might be listening for the fact that nobody's come into the store. "It's okay to give a shit, you know. You've had to deal with me giving a whole lot more of a shit about how I look and how I'm aging, and I happen to know that I was _insufferable_ about it."

Patrick is suddenly shaking against David's chest and David smiles. "You were, yes," Patrick agrees, and David can't summon up the mental energy to pick a fight about how easy that agreement was. "I just- I hate looking like we're a mismatched set, you know? I know that you're out of my league, but people don't need to keep _saying_ it all the time."

David shakes his head, feeling it as his chin brushes against the top of Patrick's not-balding scalp. "No, no they do not," he affirms. There's a beat, and David says, "we're not a mismatched set, you know. If anything we're- we're complementary colors. We go together great. And I know it doesn't help right now to say that I'm not out of your league, but-"

"Yeah, yeah," Patrick mutters against his clavicle and David laughs. 

He pulls Patrick off of him and looks him in the eye and says, "okay, let's just establish here that you're not, at this moment, going bald." Patrick snorts and nods sheepishly. "Okay, then, so what exactly are you worried about in the _not currently relevant_ situation of you actually starting to lose your hair?" 

"I mean, it's just... You said you wanted me to grow my hair out, but at this rate by the time I manage it I'll look like fucking Danny DeVito. And it would just all be different. I wouldn't look like me."

"Okay, first of all, say nothing against Danny DeVito, he and Rhea are great. That said, you have to trust me to prevent you from making a big hair mistake that you would regret, and if I didn't think that longer hair would look extremely dashing on you, I wouldn't be recommending growing it out. _But,_ but but but, you will always look like you, and your hair is your decision and if you don't like something about it then you tell me that. If that means you keeping your hair short the way it is now, great, very sexy. If it means shaving it all off, also very sexy. If it means getting hair plugs, then sorry, you cannot spend ten thousand dollars on that for nobody's benefit but yours while still forbidding me from sending us to Japan next April for the cherry blossoms. I won't allow it." 

Patrick nods, smiling. "No hair plugs, got it. Japan is a maybe, not until after we've budgeted for the second sales assistant."

Well, that's interesting, but something to discuss another time. This is more important. "You should do whatever you want with your hair that will make you feel as sexy and as gorgeous as you look to me. Don't let me pressure you about that, but also- don't shut me out either, okay? I'll think you're beautiful either way, but I do have excellent taste and a vested interest in your attractiveness so I think I could have a valuable perspective." Patrick laughs, but David doesn't think he's entirely gotten the point, and pitches his voice down to say, "just trust me, okay? That I think you're beautiful, that I want you to look and feel as beautiful as you are, that I'm not trying to trick you or pity you- you are stunning to me, and not just to me. I'm proud to have you on my arm, and while I would be even if you were a bridge troll, you just aren't. So trust me, I know it's not how it works, but just believe that. Believe me." 

Patrick's eyes widen again and it's tugging at something deep in David's chest. "You know I believe you. You know none of this is about you or me not thinking that you like how I look."

" _Love_ how you look."

"Right, um, yes." Patrick is flushing, and it's going way down below his shirt collar and to the tips of his ears in the way that David loves so much. "The whole aging thing is just something I have to get used to, that's all." 

David can work with that. "At the very worst you'll end up looking like Prince William, okay? Just with a better face. I'm no Kate Middleton, but." 

"Don't want Kate Middleton, I just want you," Patrick says, moving closer, and they're kissing now and things feel the most okay they have all day. Why didn't David think of this, just them kissing and everything being better? So much easier than that whole talking-about-feelings thing. 

They pull apart and Patrick is still looking him in the eye as he says, "I mean, we both know that when I go bald my actual solution is going to be a Moira Rose-style collection of wigs and toupees, with a variety of colors and styles to suit my mood and wardrobe." And David's mouth is wide open in shocked amusement, and he's trying to summon a response to that terrible remark, and Patrick's eyes are fucking _twinkling_ , and everything is okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> Be like Patrick and wear sunscreen, everyone. My mom had a precancerous lesion and trust me, you do not want to deal with that kind of shit. 
> 
> Also, it's (mostly) a myth that male pattern baldness is maternally inherited- there are multiple genes controlling it and only one is on the X chromosome. Wow, I've never needed to use my biology degree for a fic before.


End file.
